Walking Chorlton's past .... that popular history talk with Andrew Simpson .... Sunday

 This Sunday you can walk our past with Andrew Simpson and discover just who you might have to be polite to.

Ploughing beside Beech Road, circa 1892

Now that is not so daft a question if you lived in a small rural community on the edge of Manchester in the summer of 1848.

For a start, most people earned their living from the land, and many of these would be agricultural labourers, who worked for local farmers and in some cases rented their homes from those same farmers.

Along with these there was a sizable group of small market gardeners, growing cash crops for the Manchester markets on one to nine acres of land which they rented from a handful of landowners.

Charles Clarke blacksmith, 1913

Added to these were the tradesmen ranging from the blacksmith and wheelwright to shopkeepers, carpenters and dressmakers all of whom were dependent on both the farmers and the “people of plenty”.

And even some of the more prosperous, who after 1832 commanded a vote in General Elections, might think carefully about voting for an election candidate who was not the preferred and stated choice of the wealthy and powerful Egerton family who owned something like 67% of all the land in Chorlton.

So, the question of who you should be polite to in 1848 was a serious one which might cost your livelihood and your home.

And that will be the theme of this walk through Chorlton’s past which is part of Chorlton Book Festival,. *

Along the way there will be some tales of dark deeds, mixed with the everyday life of farmers, agricultural workers and their families, and a nod to the posh residents who must be treated with upmost politeness.

We were a small rural community of just 761 people, spread out in a number of hamlets. 

On the northern boundary was Martledge, south of Chorlton Brook was Hardy and at the centre was Chorlton itself.

St Clements by the green circa 1870s

Smaller communities in some cases just a few houses were scattered in between.  And as if to underline a dependence on the land, each of these small communities were separated by fields and orchards.

And so today we will take a walk down Chorlton Row, from Barlow Moore Lane, stopping to look at the big house, several cottages, some interesting fields and of course the smithy, the Wesleyan chapel and a beer house.

Along the way we may encounter a few people it would be prudent to be polite too, and plenty who are too busy to pass the time of day.

Having reached Chorlton Green there will be a brief stop to survey the old church, the two pubs, and three farmhouses, along with assorted wattle and daub cottages, and the village school.

Mr. Higginbotham bringing in  the harvest from the Meadows, undated

After which we will head north, visiting another 18th century farm cottage before crossing the Rough Leech Gutter at High Lane, hard by Scotch Corner and that local beauty point known as Pits Brow,  finishing at the site of the ancient Ash Tree “at the foot of which a certain man engaged in prayer each day".**

So, there will be plenty to see, and much that will tell us about what it was like to live in a small rural community, just 3½ miles from the smoke, noise and enterprise of Manchester.

Assemble at the corner of Beech Road and Barlow Moor Road at 2pm on Sunday September 20th.***

The walk will conclude after much history and a degree of fun at the Edge for refreshments.

Pictures; ploughing on Beech Road, circa 1890, and harvesting on the meadows, courtesy of Mr. Higginbotham, from the Lloyd collection, and detail from the 1854 OS map for Lancashire by kind permission of Digital Archives Association, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/ old St Clement’s Church circa 1870s from the collection of Tony Walker

*Chorlton Book Festival, September 17th to the September 26th

  https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/cc/chorlton-book-festival-2026-4861494/

**Ellwood, Thomas Chapter 4, History of Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester Gazette, November 28, 1885

*** Walking Chorlton’s Past, Sunday September 20th. 

Tickets are £11  include refreshments at the Edge Theatre cafe afterwards.

Tickets available from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/walking-down-beech-road-in-the-summer-of-1848-tickets-1996447382865?aff=odcleoeventsincollection

That theatre in Woolwich I wished I could have visited ...... the Royal Artillery Theatre

Now I must confess I did not know of the Royal Artillery Theatre which was opposite the Royal Artillery Barracks.

Cinderella, 1949

But as it closed eight years before I began visiting Woolwich I am not surprised that its existence passed me by.

It opened in 1863 as the Royal Artillery Recreation Rooms and was a conversion from a multipurpose hall which underwent further alterations and a name change, and reopened in 1905 after a fire which had destroyed the interior.

It was my old friend Tricia who told me about the theatre and introduced me to its history via that wonderful theatre site, Arthur Lloyd.co.uk which I had completely forgotten about.

The site tells the story of our theatres and music halls over the last few centuries and is well worth a visit.

I consulted it over some of the other theatres in Woolwich and also in Manchester and If memory serves me supplied some information about one of our local play houses.

How to get there, 1949

Now never being one to just reproduce another’s research I will just direct you to the site, leaving you to wander over the old programmes, and marvel at the pictures, and draw your attention to the map from 1949 showing the streets around the theatre and the tram routes.

And that map for me has to be a bonus, given as I was born in that year and have never lost my love of the stately trams.

So thank you Tricia.

Location; Woolwich

Pictures; from for Arthur Lloyd.co.uk

* Arthur Lloyd.co.uk, http://www.arthurlloyd.co.uk/RoyalArtilleryTheatreWoolwich.htm

Opps …. never get lazy with your history ….. and other revelations

It’s that golden rule of all research which put simply is …. check your facts.

And now the BBC has it’s own "BBC Verify" which searches and challenges a vast range of assertions masquerading as facts.

But we all get lazy and I am no exception.

So, in a story on the origins of apple crumble I wrote “a recipe for it was in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management dated 1896”, and despite not finding a reference in my own copy which had been published thirty-years earlier I went with the comment from an online article.*

I should have dug deeper but accepted the statement, and yesterday someone left the comment “I am looking for early crumble recipes and stumbled across your comment. 

Are you sure Mrs Beeton has a recipe for a crumble in 1865. I can see references to Mrs Beeton crumbles but whenever I research them they all seem to link to a blog post that made that claim erroneously. 

Would be great to be proven wrong but haven't found anything in Beeton this far!! Any hints much appreciated!”

All of which is a tad embarrassing and led me to consider taking down the original story but instead I will amend the copy including the comment and then go looking for later copies of Mrs Beeton.

But it does highlight that temptation to accept what is asserted as the truth.

Now truth and indeed facts are not set in stone, and as we all know new scholarship and chance finds can reverse a fact lead to a fresh interpretation and a new truth.

It is 43 years since the discovery of the Hitler Diaries which have now been proved as forgeries but for a brief period in the early 1980s some scholars, and some newspapers thought they were genuine, expended heaps of money acquiring them only to be disappointed at the discovery that they were made up.

My simple slip up may seem a world away and trivial in comparison to those diaries or the regular stories that the moon landings were fake, that there is a mystery to planes and ships disappearing in an area off Bermuda or countless other conspiracy theories, but of course it’s the same.

And that brings me back to Mrs. Beeton and the recipe for Sweet Macaroni Pudding.

It appears on pages 654 and 655 in the 1863 edition of The Book of Household Management and is further vindication of my oft told account of how as young kids in the 1950s we often ate spaghetti cooked with milk and sugar. 

The overwhelming response to that story is a mix of bewilderment, revulsion and incredulity and I have to say in some cases disbelief.  

And despite my frequent revisits to the story, I know some thought it was either a false memory or just made up.**

But then my friend, fellow writer and blogger Lois Elsden*** sent me Food in War Time - Vegetarian Recipes for 100 Inexpensive Dishes: And Helpful Suggestions for Providing Two Course Dinners for Six People for One Shilling, George W. Hall.

It was published during the Great War and there is boiled Macaroni “with a little sugar and milk [which] makes a very acceptable pudding”.***

It was that moment when I could proudly write “We are not an aberration and nor were alone” to which I can now push back the date when sweet pasta pudding was acceptable.

I don’t suppose its historical lineage well endear it to my sons and friends but there you are wait long enough and your own facts will come along.

Leaving me just to conclude with the observation of others on the importance of facts.

In a conversation with Rudyard Kipling in 1889 Mark Twain said "Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please”.  

And while I have yet to verify the following, I think they are worth throwing into the pot.  John Adams: "Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." 

Daniel Patrick Moynihan: "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts."

Thomas Huxley: "Science is organized common sense where many a beautiful theory was killed by an ugly fact."

And that is that.

Pictures; The St Michael All Colour Cookery Book, Jeni Wright, 1976, recipe for  Sweet Macaroni Pudding, courtesy of Google Books, 2011, cover of the reprint Food in War Time, 2026,  and pasta to make a pudding from, 2026

*Apple crumble ….. it’s place in history .... and a lesson in doing your homework https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2021/02/apple-crumble-its-place-in-history-and.html

** We are not an aberration …… when you are not alone .... spaghetti, milk and sugar, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2026/07/we-are-not-aberration-when-you-are-not_02011329298.html

***Lois Elsden, Writer, https://loiselsden.com/

**** Food in War Time - Vegetarian Recipes for 100 Inexpensive Dishes: And Helpful Suggestions for Providing Two Course Dinners for Six People for One Shilling, George W. Hall 

Looking inside a grand Victorian house …. Rye Bank and the story of Mr. Bryce Smith ... part 1

In the course of the last few days I have got to know a lot about Mr. Bryce Smith, who lived at Rye Bank in Chorlton, described himself as a “calico printer”, owned a  prestigious warehouse on Nicholas Street in Manchester, and a factory in Whalley near Blackburn.

Inventory, 1891

I doubt I would ever have gone looking for him if I hadn’t been shown an inventory of the contents of his home which was made shortly after his death in 1892.

The inventory is now in the possession of Chris Griffiths who thought I would be interested, which of course I am.

Because, here spread over 57 foolscap pages and bound in  leather is an insight in to just what a wealthy family accumulated in their home.

Looking through the inventory I noted that the list of Mr. Smith’s library was covered  21 pages, his collection of oil paintings, water colour drawings and engravings over another two pages and his silver and plated articles across two more pages.

And that is just what caught my eye, leaving me to explore the full nineteen rooms along with the lists of linen, glass, and china.

Index to the Inventory, 1892

All of which will reveal much about the life of one well off Victorian family, here in Chorlton in the late 19th century.

The warehouse on Nicholas Street, 1883

Now, I knew of the existence of Rye Bank which stood in extensive grounds, facing Edge Lane and extending along the side of Ryebank Road, but I knew little of the people who occupied it or just when the house was demolished.

Just when the family moved into the property is a little unclear.  They were there by 1871, but may have been elsewhere on Edge Lane before that.

Either way in 1871 the Rate Books reveal that Mr. Smith was occupying Rye Bank which he owned, and he stayed for two decades.  The house had an annual estimated a rateable value of £229, which marked it off as the largest property on this bit of Edge Lane.

But then Bryce Smith was a wealthy man.  He left £162,622 on his death and his warehouse and offices on Nicholas Street, which are still there, bear witness to his financial standing.

There is a lot more.  His papers are deposited the Lancashire County Archive, and contain amongst other things  the “Bill of Quantities for the erection of a warehouse in Nicholas Street. Manchester for Bryce Smith Esq” in the August of 1873.

So watch this space.

Location; Chorlton

Pictures; pages from the Inventory Rye Bank Chorlton-cum-Hardy, 1892, courtesy of Chris Griffiths, and the Nicholas Street, showing the Smith warehouse, 1883, from Goads Fire Insurance maps, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/

*Bryce Smith Papers, DDX 2/37Lancashire County Archives,

https://archivecat.lancashire.gov.uk/CalmView/Overview.aspx

Advertising things in 1959 ...… never miss an opportunity

 We are on Upper Brook Street with a group of houses about to be demolished.

But never underestimate the determination of an advertising company to use every available site to good use.

And so in 1959, as you passed these houses there were the boards advertising Navy Blue Cigarettes and Corn Flakes.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; never miss an advertising opportunity, 1959, 1959-2878.1courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?

Down at the Castle in the High Street with a bit of historical magic

Now one of the best things about history is when you get to touch it.

And for me it doesn’t that matter much whether it’s a Roman coin or a glass medicine bottle from the beginning of the last century.

To touch the object and know that somewhere on it will be the fingerprints of the person who first made it and a story that will twist and turn in all directions is magic.

One of my greatest treasures is a Viking oyster shell which had lain in the mud of Jorvik for a thousand years before the archaeologists of the City of York brought it back into the day light.

Back in 1978 when it was uncovered there were so many that they were put in a wooden barrel and were on sale for 10p.

The other find was from the back of our shed where Dad had carefully placed thirty copper earth rods made for one of those very early wireless sets.

The batch dated from the 1920s, had sat in our garden shed in Well Hall for years and had been made in the Acnaconda Works, Salford which is just down the road.

All of which is an introduction to this 17th century trade token which Tricia shared with me.

Tokens like this were issued by traders in the absence of low value coinage, and was a practice which extended into the 18th century.

In Eltham the oldest dates from 1649 and bears the names of Nathaniel and Tasmin Mercer who were running the Castle, while another from 1667.

They were unearthed when the old Castle pub was demolished, and also found was one for William Crich of the Grocers’ Arms Deptford dated 1663.

Now imagine how over the moon I was when Tricia said  "I have been investigating the attached farthing tokens concerning The Castle for some time. 

I have been trying to find out who the initials belong to (NT & wife T) reading your post today I now know it to be Nathaniel & Tasmin Mercer. So I am handing it over to you to add to your blog seeing as you have done all the hard work.

The description is as follows. 17c farthing token issued by NM and wife T at the Castelle Taverne, Issue date 1649, denomination farthing, metal copper alloy, diameter 14mm."

And that is it.  A pretty neat bit of joint research.

Location, Eltham

Picture, the 1649 Castle trade token courtesy of Tricia Lesley

Of horses, an RAF Band and a night at the Cheetham Assembly Rooms in November 1944

Now I wonder just how packed the Cheetham Assembly Rooms were, when the “Full RAF Rhythm Band” played on the Saturday of November 25 1944.

1944

Or for that matter whether the audience knew that part of their 10 shilling ticket entry was going to the Little Horses Charity Fund.

And that set me thinking about the charity and its need for money, particularly when the world was engulfed in a war that would ultimately see the death and displacement of millions, when members of the armed forces were at that moment fighting on mainland Europe and in the Far East and when the surrounding streets bore the scars of nights of German bombing.

I had never come across the Little Horses Charity but a search showed that there were quite a few charities devoted to the welfare of horses as well as other animals, one of which had opened a hospital for animals injured in air raids during the war.

At which point there will be a few who offer up detailed accounts of those welfare organizations particularly
those given over to horses which had a wretched time during the 19th and early 20th centuries when so much of our transport relied on horse drawn vehicles.

1959

I suspect there will also be a few with stories of the Assembly Rooms which opened in 1857 and lasted almost a century before it closed because if declining numbers, and according to one site was bought in 1960 with the intention of turning into a tyre warehouse.*

Now that was an ignominious ending for such a grand place, but its final chapter was perhaps even sadder, for after that century which saw concerts, soirees and late night suppers, it was demolished, with the site becoming first a petrol station and now a car wash business.

1965

All, a long way from the night when “Miss Stitt came as the White Cat and Miss Goldie as the owl in the ivy bush, ....... and Mr Bradshaw as a time-traveller, dressed as ‘a gentleman of the early twentieth century’” during the event arranged by "twenty bachelors of Manchester for 450 ladies and gentlemen on January 19th 1870".*

Leaving me just to thank David Harrop who provided the advert, and comment on the two pictures of the Rooms just before the end.

"Removed to Waterloo Road" 1965

Look very closely and on the second can be made out the notice announcing that “Fitzsimons Tyres Removed to Waterloo Road” and on the first the old telephone kiosk from which members of the band may well have phoned loved ones in the interval.

I doubt that there will be anyone who can offer up a memory of that November night, but I bet there will be quite a few who have other stories of the Assembly Rooms in equally magic nights.

Well I hope so.

Location; Cheetham Hill Road

Pictures; poster advertising the dance, 1944from the collection of David Harrop and the Assembly Rooms in 1959, R. Mirza, m16437, and 1965, W. Kay, m16303, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass